August 2, 2010
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Iowa Eggs: Fifteen Cent Miracles
Eggs aren’t nicknamed “the incredible edible” for nothing. They are among the most nutritious foods on earth, for the most obvious reason. Unlike fruits, vegetables and meats, eggs are designed to be food – to support embryonic life forms until they are mature enough to find their own nourishment. Milk is the only other similarly natural food. Eggs contain thirteen essential vitamins and minerals plus the highest quality food protein one can buy, at least this side of the black market for human mother‘s milk. Egg protein has the most nearly perfect mix of essential amino acids needed to generate body tissues. That’s why body builders chug shakes made of as many as 40 egg whites at a time. Only beef liver compares to eggs in levels of choline, a nutrient most Americans lack though it’s essential to knowledge acquisition and memory function, particularly in fetus development.
Eggs balance diets. A large egg contains only 75 calories and only 5 grams of fat, mostly in the yolks which are also a major source of vitamins, including D, rarely found naturally in any food. In an age of cholesterol paranoia, remember that the world’s biggest egg consumers, the Japanese, have the world’s lowest rates of cardio vascular diseases. Besides, saturated fat has replaced cholesterol as the main target of trendy nutritionists and eggs are low in saturated fat.
Jen Strauss of Carefree Patisserie, who served an egg yolk bacon mocha crème brulee this year at Bacon Fest, confessed her egg faith.
“Eggs are whole foods in the most literal sense. They always have been. They are the most perfect food in nature. My kids can go through 2 dozen a week. I know they are getting a protein booster and an adequate dose of fat, which is necessary to a balanced diet. As a Mom, I also love that the egg is perfectly portion-controlled,” she said.
Which came first?
Nest by Tilly Woodward, courtesy of Olson-Larsen Galleries
According to the Medieval Church, the chicken did, as Genesis reported the God formed the creatures ahead of their reproductive systems and all else. Samuel Butler defied that in Victorian times, declaring the chicken was simply the eggs method of forming a new egg. Modern genetics affirms Butler, assigning organisms a role in the survival of gene sets, not vice versa. Since neither can exist without the other though, generations of common sense claims this is semantics.
Historians agree. After all eggs existed nearly a billion years before the first chicken, at least if we define an egg as a female reproductive cell surrounded with enough nutrition to support embryonic life after its fertilized, and a membrane to protect it. Sexual reproduction arose 1 billion years ago. The first chickens came along less than 5000 years ago, way late compared goats and sheep.
The chicken’s genetic parents were jungle fowl in Southeast Asia and India, where chickens were first bred. Since chickens will continue to lay eggs until they accumulate a certain number, they can be tricked into laying eggs indefinitely, by removing eggs before they reach their quota. Other birds lay a predetermined number, regardless of what happens to them.
It’s possible that chickens developed for reasons other than food. The first culinary mention of chickens or eggs date to Apicius, a name given to a Roman food book in the late fourth century. However, literary references to cock fighting go back another 1000 years to India, and that practice spread to Greece, Persia and Rome long before the Romans discovered what good food they raised for fighting and religious purposes. We also have numerous references of chickens in religion – both as sacrifices and as diviners of the future – that date from Vedas.
Once Apicius got the egg rolling, the culinary thing picked up speed fast. Apicius wrote recipes for frying, boiling, soft boiling and also for omelets and custards. French recipe books from 1400 have recipes for custards and omelets and baked eggs that hardly differ at all from today’s methods.
Economic Engines
From Roman till modern times, eggs were pretty much reserved for the rich. Populist egg commerce took flight in the middle of the 19th century after the Cochin breed was imported from China. Those beauties touched off a wild speculative breeding craze, similar to the infamous tulip mania. Chicken shows became big entertainment after the Civil War until the 20th century when the White Leghorn emerged as queen of egg laying chickens and the Cornish as the best meat chicken. Breeders then consolidated thousands of breeds down a handful.
During the first half of the 20th century, egg farming became the agricultural equivalence of the American Dream. In 1945‘s “The Egg and I,” Betty MacDonald called it “the common man’s holy grail.” Thousands of farmers got into eggs, particularly in West Coast climates where heating and cooling costs were minimal. They were doomed by the laws of supply and demand. Plentiful eggs became too cheap for modern technology. When MacDonald wrote her book, most egg farms averaged 400 hens. Today, hardly any exist with fewer than 3000 and many have 100,000. Nothing smaller can afford the air conditioning, heating, antibiotics, high tech feed, and lighting systems required to raise hens efficiently enough to produce eggs that sell for about fifteen cents each.
Today’s typical laying hen (240 million in the US) is born in an incubator, eats an industrially designed formula, lives and lays on wire under lights and produces about 300 eggs a year. That adds up to 50 billion eggs a year. China is the biggest producer with 41% of the world’s trillion eggs a year. Wolrd egg production has been growing almost 3 % a year of the last decade. World trade increases 6 per cent a year.
Egg production is now concentrated in the Midwest. Last year, Iowa’s 57 million laying hens produced 15 billion eggs, roughly 15 percent of the United States’ total and more than twice as many as number two egg state Ohio. That’s about 300 eggs per hen, per year. Iowa eggs now account for $2 billion in yearly sales and support 7600 jobs that average nearly $37,000 in annual wages.
Nationwide, egg income jumped from $3.7 billion in 2003 to $6 billion last year. Iowa’s share rose from $460 million in 2003 to $1.1 billion last year. That growth masked dramatic peaks and valleys. Wholesale egg prices per dozen reached 59 cents in 2004, then dropped to 35 cents a year later. As recently as 2005, Iowa’s egg producers realized income of $335.3 million, a third of what they earned in 2008. Last year, the wholesale price reached 93 cents, but feed costs were $12 per hundred pounds, almost double the 2006 average.
Political stinkThe Humane Society recentlyfiled a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to stop an egg producer from making what the group claims are misleading statements about providing a “humane and friendly” environment for hens.
The group says an investigation at Rose Acre farms’ three Iowa farms showed hens trapped in wires of cages; hens unable to reach food or water; hens with broken bones; and dead hens in
cages with live hens.Consumers have been turning to cage free eggs for the last two decades, particularly in Europe. California voters will decide this year whether or not to ban cages in egg productions. In Iowa, small farms like Fox Hollow in Elkhart, where Tai Johnson-Spatt
raises scores of heritage chickens, turkeys, geese, quai, ducks and peahens together, have found consumers willing to pay a premium for free ranged eggs. Are these things a threat to the big egg facilities?
Egg producers are accustomed to the ebbs and flows of profits. A more recent problem on the horizon is political. During the past decade, the egg industry has been subjected to unflattering publicity about odors and mistreatment of its workers and, especially, the hens. One response to odor is a study by Hongwei Xin, director of Iowa State University’s Egg Industry Center in Ames. He experimented with hens’ diets to reduce the odor from their waste. Xin told the Des Moines register that preliminary results showing a combination of distillers grain often a residue of ethanol production or a mixture of calcium sulfate and zeolite had reduced odorous emissions by as much as 46 percent in early tests at Iowa poultry confinement centers.That won’t be enough to change the way consumers shop for eggs. More free ranged and cage free eggs are being purchased each year. A more serious threat appeared in November when California voters approved Proposition 2, which requires cages large enough for chickens to spread their wings. The egg industry is bracing for similar referendums in other states. Proposition 2 will not go into effect until 2015.
Cooking Marvels
At Iowa Egg Council’s 25th Anniversary Cook Off, Hy-Vee Conference Center chef Cyd Koehn demonstrated her recipe for silver dollar mashed potato soufflés. She set samples out with a business card. The following day she found 35 e-mail requests for the recipe.
“I think people were taken by surprise – hardly anyone thinks about making savory dishes with meringues, only sweet stuff. But eggs are the most amazing food, you can do so many things with them,” Koehn explained.
Eggs are incredibly versatile, having three extraordinary characteristics: 1.) They can thicken liquids into solids (custards, quiches); 2.) Their whipped albumen (egg white) expands eight times into foams (meringues) and; 3.) Emulsifiers in their yolks can stabilize oil and liquid (mayonnaise).
In his eye-opening book “Twinkie, Deconstructed,“ Steven Ettlinger began by asking two questions: Why is it you can bake a similar cake with six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why don‘t the ingredients in Twinkies resemble real food? (Corn dextrin is also the glue on postage stamps, ferrous sulfate is also a weed killer and calcium sulfate is called “food-grade plaster of Paris.”) Ettlinger discovered his answers in the mine shafts, oil fields, laboratories, reactors and blast furnaces that shaped Twinkie ingredients into powder and goo that attempt to replicate the flavor, texture and emulsification properties of the incredible egg, and its companion natural foods milk and butter.
State of the Egg Art
Iowa painter Tilly Woodward raises laying hens. She thinks they complement her art.
“Raising hens teaches patience and waiting, metaphors for being both a mother and an artist. Remember, eggs are a classic symbol of the Holy Trinity. I can’t think of more beautiful, wonderful thing than an egg,” she said.
Culinary egg art has been established for centuries. Classical Romans left recipes for boiling, frying and poaching eggs. China’s “hundred year egg” has actually been around for at least 600 years. Fifteenth century French recipes for custards, omelets and baked eggs barely differ from today’s. Even the latest rage in egg cooking takes its inspiration from an old Japanese tradition of housewives immersing eggs in mineral springs.
Enosh Kelley uses thousands of dollars worth of thermal immersion equipment to simulate such Momofuku eggs – simmered for hours at very low temperatures. At his Bistro Montage café, Kelley quick fries them and serves then with polenta and lamb bacon.
At last month’s Winefest, Dom Iannarelli (Splash) poached eggs in a bath of saffron, garlic, lemon juice, salt and red wine. He then used them on top of smoked salmon salad with home made pickles. He topped those eggs with others – tobikko.
At La Mie, Christina Logsdon has added a line of macarons that include both French and Italian styles. These little meringue based treats are notoriously difficult to make.
One Des Moines variation in egg gastronomy is taken for granted by locals, until they leave town and can’t find Mrs. Clark’s mayonnaise. Mayonnaise has been made since the 1700’s by emulsifying olive or vegetable oil with egg yolks, vinegar or lemon juice. Mrs. Clark’s recipe adds mustard seed creating a distinctive Des Moines flavor.
Some of the highest forms of egg art are out of fashion. In bartending, fresh egg drinks are rarely requested these days.
“Pink Ladies (gin, egg whites, Grenadine and cream), Tom & Jerry’s (eggs, rum and sugar) and Ramos Gin Fizzes (gin, lemon juice, lime juice, egg whites, sugar, cream, orange water and soda) are all fantastic drinks that aren’t in style these days,” explains Sbrocco manager Mark Murphy.
Similarly George Formaro (Centro) loves zabaglione, likely the world’s unique whipped egg yolk dessert. However he admits it’s not appreciated enough to keep on his menu. When he does make it, Formaro folds in heavy whipped cream so he can use it cold. Andrew Meek (Sbrocco) has adapted a new version of that classic.
“I call it curd zabaglione. It’s basically a sweet version of Hollandaise. I cheat the classic, I don’t whip the yolks much at all,” Meek said, adding that he makes different flavors (rhubarb, Meyer lemon, lime, basil) and offers them in trios, on Asian soup spoons.
“I also use that mixture in pound cake and tarts. The key for me is to use good eggs, grade AA’s or something fresh from a supplier. I get eggs from Fox Hollow Farm and I have even made this with their duck eggs. That’s heaven,” Meek added.
Creative egg cooking mostly involves new applications of old methods. Des Moines’ most famous egg dishes involve whole egg pasta – particularly the Sunday dinner cavatelli that Calabrese immigrants brought here. Tony Lemmo and Phil Shires make all their pasta from scratch with fresh eggs at Café di Scala. They’ve added new variations like carrot tagliatelle and squash cappelacci.
Other new applications are simpler. “I think almost any sandwich is better with eggs fried on top,” Formaro declared, reminding us that Centro and Django serve dishes that add eggs to burgers, pork tenderloins, salads and ham sandwiches.
For the sake of poetry though, our last word on eggs goes to former Wire Whisk Workshop owner Deb Wagman.
“Chickens, fertile mommies that they are, deserve to live in perfect bliss for the fragile treasures they give to us. Eggs are so unabashedly elemental, so profoundly nourishing, so Zen-like in their simple perfection. If I got to choose my last meal, it would be one poached egg – 4 minutes, no more, no less – on toasted whole wheat bread. Then, if I didn’t make it to heaven, I would have at least experienced a taste of it on earth.”
